Rep. Steve King has taken plenty of heat from both the left and the right over the past few days for his assertion that for every valedictorian DREAMer there are “another hundred” who “weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’ve been hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”

In an interview with Iowa talk radio host Simon Conway on Wednesday, King offered a similar tirade, accusing his critics of making “unrestrained, undisciplined, divisive remarks” and warning that if his opponents are allowed to have their way “this nation will eventually fail because we’ll completely lose our objectivity and we’ll be driven by our emotions instead of our reason.”

If we can’t discuss objective truth among people that are elected representatives in the United States Congress, if it has to turn personal, if they have to make these kind of remarks, these unrestrained, undisciplined, divisive remarks, at first I’d say, how could they have listened to the tape that you’ve run and come to such a conclusion? But second is, if there’s no objective discussion, if we can’t bring up the other side of the coin, then this nation will eventually fail because we’ll completely lose our objectivity and we’ll be driven by our emotions instead of our reason.